47 is threatening Iran. Yes, again. Apparently, the clock is ticking. Time is running out. Apparently, he’s just about to do something. Iran better do as it’s told or it’s facing a serious timeout, buster. Do you want me to start counting? Because you’re getting very close to your last chance. I mean it. It’s time to make a deal or else. One… No, I’m serious. Two… You’re really gonna get it. <later> 4,726… You’re getting close to your last chance. 4,727… I mean it, buster!

So Fred Mertz, no, that’s Lucy and Ricky’s neighbor. Friedrich Merz, the current German Chancellor, decided to help by telling the Iranians they had better get serious about negotiating with the US. He wrote on Brand X, “Iran must enter into serious negotiations with the USA, stop threatening its neighbors, and open the strait of Hormuz without restrictions.“

Easy to say. Not as easy to do. Iran must enter into serious negotiations with the USA? Is the USA seriously negotiating with Iran? Currently, because certain people think it’s a good idea, the US is governed by a group of the most untrustworthy morons the world has seen in decades. Team Evil lies about everything, all the time. How does one negotiate with that?

One thing everybody knows about Donald Trump: if he makes a deal and then decides he didn’t like that deal, after all, he’ll just ignore the deal he made. For a guy who talks about “deals” all the time, he’s not trustworthy in deals. HE, invariably, is the weakest link. Even if Iran does negotiate with the US, will the US honor anything it says? I think the hardest thing about ending Donny’s war-that’s-not-a-war is finding someone dependable with whom to negotiate…

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I saw conservative talk show host Bill Maher this weekend. He challenged his audience to support Israel or admit you’re antisemitic. Clever framing. Either/or, huh? Those are the only choices? I’m going with option C, which Bill pretends doesn’t exist. I think Israel is wrong and it has nothing to do with Judaism.

Israel is fighting a war of attrition, with an end goal of having no Arabs in “their” region. From the river to the sea, as a matter of fact. The idea that it was the Arab’s “region” before doesn’t much affect their thinking. For the record, I think it’s wrong to attack Synagogues and other Jewish organizations in protest of the Israeli government, too. Walk a picket line outside Israeli embassies. Don’t attack places of worship.

It’s weird, watching Maher move right. He doesn’t even know it, either, though I think that’s common when it happens. People don’t realize. It’s often a single issue that gets hold of their minds. In Maher’s case – surprisingly, for a self-proclaimed atheist – it’s Israel and Judaism…

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Well, there’s a new delay in the ballroom. You remember. It’s the $200 million, no $300 million, wait, $400 million dollar ballroom that will be completely and totally privately funded and you can take that to the bank – where you’ll find all of the private funding has disappeared and now the Congress wants to give him a billion dollars in taxpayer money, instead.

This boy just keeps taking things away from the masses so he can give more and more to, um, <checks notes> RIGHT! Himself. But the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has shot down the line item as a violation of proper procedure. The cons can try to get it back by re-writing the bill, so it’s more like delaying, rather than killing the item.

Look, I know it’s a little thing. It’s most likely he’s going to get his ballroom. His toadies work on his behalf all the time. But the delays and challenges frustrate him and I like that. It feels like he’s getting back just a small amount of what he’s sending out into the world on a daily basis. Reaping as he sows, in a manner of speaking…

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I have a question. Do you feel badly for the poor, suffering Congress critters who have to try and survive on only $174,000 dollars a year? Things are tough all over, I guess. MAGA Mike, the Johnson, says it’s really hard trying to make ends meet on such measly income. His solution? Insider trading! That’s not even hyperbole, though he only mentions “stock trading,” trying to downplay the “insider” part.

He also trotted out that old saw about how less qualified people will come to Congress if we don’t pay them properly – which, in his mind, is a LOT. I always think back to the Founders, who built an entire nation on no salary and only a per diem income of about $8.00/day. (Of course, that works out to around $306/day in today’s money…)

Still the “unpaid,” all-volunteer congress laid out and established an entire nation that rose to empire and dominated the world before Congress gave way to well-paid weasels who don’t do anything of value and have pissed the whole thing away. It looks very much, to me, like better pay did NOT equate to better people. Exactly the opposite, in fact.

$174,000 dollars/year puts congress critters in the top 10% of income, and that’s before all of the other perks and benefits that come their way. Now they “need” to trade stocks in order to support their families? I suspect they may not be living within their means. Maybe they could pass up on that morning coffee from their favorite shop. That outta do it, right? Isn’t that their prescription for us?

Their best argument is about housing. They maintain housing in two places, their home district and Washington DC. They argue that because they have to do that, they need more and more and more money. The solution isn’t more and more pay. The solution is government housing for the congress critters when they’re in Washington DC.

I should mention, Johnson hasn’t talked about this recently. But a clip of him making the comments last year went around on the one-year anniversary of the whining, May 14th. I’ll tell you this: I don’t feel his pain. I can’t relate. I don’t have much sympathy for the person who has to “get by” on “only” $174,000 a year – before the perks…